Playing with Picasa Again - Need your Help!

I have been playing with Picasa again. I recently won a 2'x3' vinyl banner from U-Printing on The Shopping Duck's blog. I had already ordered a free 2'x1.5' vinyl banner from Vista Print a few weeks ago and I did a collage of our llamas, which I will show you later. So, I decided that I wanted to do a different banner collage this time to show off my fiber arts. Picasa allows you to select photos from your computer and then you click on collage and it randomly arranges those photos. It does not allow you to move individual photos in that collage, you must click on "shuffle photos" and it randomly moves them around again. I wanted one of the custom fiber blend batt photos in the upper left part of the collage so I could write my information on that (I use Adobe Photoshop to add the text). This is the first collage I made but we think the wording is more difficult to read on the orange background.

So, I deleted some of the photos and kept shuffling the photos until I got the blue CFB into the upper left portion of the collage like this:

I still wasn't really happy with how it looked so I deleted several more photos and ended up with this:

So, my question is, which one of these three do you like best? I have until the end of November to make my final selection and get it emails to U-Printing so they can make my vinyl banner for me.

To see the photos larger, just click on them - that way you can read the lettering. The click on your "back" arrow to return to the blog. Or, right click on the photos to open them up in a new window or tab.

Thank you for taking the time to look and comment! I really appreciate your help and respect your opinions.

UPDATE: Someone made the suggestion to use white lettering instead of black - which I have done on the third image. That one happens to be my favorite because the size of the images are larger than the other two collages and the orange and blue batts finally shuffled next to each other! Someone suggested using a tan background - which I could probably DO except that would mean doing a text box in Photoshop and then reselecting all my favorite photos again in Picasa and then hope that the tan text box finally shuffled to the right position in the collage. Someone suggested that I use Photoshop to do my own collage - which is a fabulous idea, but I have no idea how to do that! Sigh...so to save myself from a HUGE amount of additional work, I'm hoping the white lettering looks better.

Thank you everyone for your fabulous ideas, suggestions, comments, etc. I knew if I put these out there I would get some great feedback. You guys Rock!

One more try - the second collage adding the tan grid lines to separate the photos a bit and the text in white.

The holiday shopping season is here!

I've decided to start doing more marketing this holiday season. I belong to several craft, art and handmade networking sites and am in a couple of marketing campaigns.

Check out the Holiday Open House on Online Shopping Mall. I found several really neat stores that I'm going to do some shopping in.

And I paid to advertise in the Virtual Craft Show on Cafe Handmade. Again, lots of great sellers and some really neat stuff. On the Virtual Craft Show they have a Best in Show award that goes to the advertiser who gets the most votes that week. The ads start on Sunday and go until the next Sunday. You can vote only once. I was in first place for a little while but am now in 3rd place. If you would like to vote for me please check out my Split Rock Ranch ad on Virtual Craft Show.You don't have to be a member and you don't have to register or anything else, just click to vote! Thank you!


UPDATE: I am now in 1st place! Thank you everyone for all the votes and the nice comments. I will still need votes to continue until Sunday to maintain my lead.


I love how my ad turned out on the Virtual Craft Show:

I think the colors just POP on this ad!

Okay, now I've got to get started dyeing up more fibers and yarns and get more fiber blend batts carded up so my store is stocked up for the holiday season. As always, I love to do custom orders so if there is something you're looking for in the way of yarns or fibers, please let me know and I'll do my best to get it for you!